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University of Illinois Mass Digitization ProjectBetsy Kruger,Project Director.Jamie : one child's journey from oral to written language: Electronic Edition: Electronic EditionUrbana : University of Illinois Graduate School of Library Science,1989.

The copy transcribed is from print holdings at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library

Prepared for the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign Library Mass Digitization Project.

The text has not been edited. This is a "dirty" OCR.

First published in electronic form in 2007

I LUNG I
S
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
PRODUCTION NOTE
University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign Library
Large-scale Digitization Project, 2007.

Technical Report No. 453
JAMIE: ONE CHILD'S JOURNEY FROM
ORAL TO WRITTEN LANGUAGE
Maribeth Nelson Lartz
Illinois State University at Normal
Jana M. Mason
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
February 1989
Center for the Study of Reading
TECHNICAL _
REPORTS
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
174 Children's Research Center
51 Gerty Drive
Champaign, Illinois 61820
REPORTS

CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF READING
Technical Report No. 453
JAMIE: ONE CHILD'S JOURNEY FROM
ORAL TO WRITTEN LANGUAGE
Maribeth Nelson Lartz
Illinois State University at Normal
Jana M. Mason
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
February 1989
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
51 Gerty Drive
Champaign, Illinois 61820
The work upon which this publication was based was supported in part by the
Office of Educational Research and Improvement under Cooperative Agreement
No. OEG 0087-C1001, with the Reading Research and Education Center. The
publication does not necessarily reflect the views of the agency supporting the
research. This paper also appears in Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 3, 1988,
193-208.
EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD
1988-89
Beck, Diana
Commeyras, Michelle
Foertsch, Daniel
Hartman, Doug
Jacobson, Michael
Jihn-Chang, Jehng
Jimenez, Robert
Kerr, Bonnie
Kerr, Paul
Meyer, Jennifer
Moran, Juan
Ohtsuka, Keisuke
Roe, Mary
Schommer, Marlene
Scott, Judy
Stallman, Anne
Wilkinson, lan
Wolff, Phillip
MANAGING EDITOR
Mary A. Foertsch
MANUSCRIPT PRODUCTION ASSISTANTS
Delores Plowman
Nancy Diedrich

Oral to Written Language Development - 1
Abstract
A case study was conducted of one preliterate child's retelling of a story. The child heard the story in
its complete form on the first session and then retold it each week for 8 weeks. The adult listener
answered her questions but did not help unless asked. The sessions were audiotaped and transcripts
were analyzed for changes in the quality and nature of the child's retellings. Results revealed that the
child nearly doubled the amount of information she told and that the quality of her retelling improved
dramatically. Change involved elaboration of important text elements, including initiating event,
problem, and resolution; rendering of characters' remarks, explaining and interpreting story events and
characters' reactions; and reading some of the actual words in the story. For the first two sessions the
retellings were brief. Then the child made a shift to a storytelling approach, taking on the two main
characters' speech events, recalling as well as inventing appropriate dialogue between them. During
the last two sessions, she shifted again, attempting to read large portions of the text. The results
suggest that a child who is accustomed to storybook reading at home can use a repeated retelling
activity to tell a story and eventually can render it so close to the actual text that an advance into
reading may occur.
Lartz & Mason

Oral to Written Language Development - 2
JAMIE: ONE CHILD'S JOURNEY FROM ORAL TO WRITTEN LANGUAGE
An important milestone in literacy development is an understanding of the forms of formal, written
language or decontextualized language (Bruner, 1984; Heath, 1986; Sulzby, 1985; Teale, 1981; Torrance
& Olson, 1985; Wells, 1985, 1986). Decontextualized language is language that is presented without the
supportive context of situation. Written language is usually decontextualized while oral language is
usually contextualized. According to Snow (1983), young children's first conversations rely on
physically present objects or current activities and a conversational partner who has shared knowledge
and who makes remarks that are familiar to the listener or that can be explained during the
conversation. In an oral language situation, a speaker might point to objects or people for the listener
to look at during the discussion, or a speaker could check that a listener understands what is being
discussed before continuing a conversation. Neither of these options is available when reading a text.
One kind of compensation for the lack of supportive context in written language is illustrative material,
such as pictures or graphs, which elaborates on text. Other kinds of compensation include advertising
signs, labels on products, and other environmental print. According to Mason (1980), children move
from recognition of these highly contextual texts (e.g., labels, signs, and stories that have been read
repeatedly to them) to a form of reading using phonological cues along with context. Thus, it appears
that pictures and easily predicted texts serve as a bridge to understanding decontextualized text. They
help children to move from an immediate and direct contextual understanding to one that is historical
and indirect. They enable children to connect their previous experiences with an object, event, or
concept to a current text reference and to make inferences about the possible contexts that the author
had in mind when writing.
Compensation for decontextualized language is also likely to occur by asking children questions about a
story being read to them and responding to their comments. The evidence that reading to children is
partly responsible for literacy acquisition, though indirect, is persuasive. Most parents do read to their
children, some beginning before children walk or talk (Ninio & Bruner, 1978). Preschool children who
later become successful readers typically have parents who often read books to them (Wells, 1986).
Children who have few books of their own at home are not read to until age 4 or 5, or are read to
irregularly are less likely to be good readers (Anderson & Stokes, 1984; Feitelson, Kita, & Goldstein,
1986; Teale, 1986). Studies of parent-child book reading interactions show that language interactions
involve labeling, elaboration of text ideas, and connections to background knowledge (DeLoache &
DeMendoza, 1986; Pellegrini, Brody, & Sigel, 1985; Snow, 1983; Snow & Ninio, 1986). Teacher-
kindergarten class book reading sessions offer similar opportunities (Peterman, Mason, & Dunning,
1985; Mason, Peterman, Powell, & Kerr, 1986).
It is not a simple matter for children to make sense of written language. Snow suggests that "the young
child would prefer a world in which print was contextual, predictable, and nonarbitrary" (1983, p. 176).
While pictures are useful, they must obviously be distinguished from written text. This early step
cannot be taken for granted. For example, Peterman and Mason (1984) found that kindergarten
children who pointed to pictures instead of the text when asked, "Show me where there is something to
read," were further behind classmates in their reading development. When do children become aware
that the text is important? Snow (1983) described one child's emerging awareness "at 40 months
[when] Nathaniel started to resist conversing about the pictures. Rather than selecting a picture and
asking a question about it, he pointed to the text and said, 'Read this one'" (1983, p. 177).
We propose two steps in children's early comprehension of written text. A first step is that children
look at pictures, connect them with known objects and events, relate people they know with text
characters and place story characters in their own time frame and situation (Soderbergh, 1977). At this
time children might look at but have no way to use printed words. Attempts to recontextualize are
Lartz & Mason
Oral to Written Language Development - 3
evident in the kinds of errors young children make when reacting to stories that they have heard. For
example, preschool children who were attempting to remember words in picture books repeatedly
miscalled the words tiger as cat and toad as frog, and they could not remember the phrase Taking tea,
which was an unfamiliar text event for them. Two children refused to accept one book's picture of a
duck ("That ain't no duck"), and another child tried to explain why a horse was not pictured in a farm
scene ("Must be the baby horse ran off with its mother") (Mason, McCormick, & Bhavnagri, 1986).
A second step is to connect pictured objects with both their oral language representations and with the
accompanying printed labels. This integrative step is apparent when children who are given confusing
labels for pictures try to match the initial letter of the print with some aspect of the picture. For
example, when asked to read the word wheel, which was placed under a picture of a car, some children
gave the word wagon that matched the initial consonant and was semantically related (Peterman &
Mason, 1984).
How might these two steps occur? According to Snow (1983), parents who read to their children
familiarize children with a purpose and way to read books. They provide decontextualized features of
language in oral language: "by telling or reading stories in which the author is impersonal, the setting is
made distant, diectic contrasts have to be understood from the writer's or speaker's point of view, and
relatively complex language forms are used" (p. 185). In addition, they use conversation to "build
'shared histories' between mother and child" (p. 185), leading to the formation of permanent memories
of book ideas.
Listening to stories permits children to acquire useful comprehension concepts from "the meaning-
building organization of written language and its characteristic rhythms and structures" (Wells, 1986, p.
151). Hearing stories extends the range of children's experiences so that they have a richer mental
model of the world and a more extensive vocabulary with which to express it. Furthermore, book
reading provides an opportunity for "collaborative" talk: talk about a story that helps children use story
dialogue and understand the significance of story events in the light of personal experiences (Cox &
Sulzby, 1982).
Adults help children build meaningful written language structures during story reading sessions in four
ways, according to Snow (1983). While talking to a child about the story being read, adults continue
the child's preceding utterance by expanding on the remark, extending it with new information,
clarifying, and answering the child's questions. Snow (1983) terms this semantic contingency. A second
procedure is scaffolding, a type of framing that adults use to reduce the complexity of the task so as to
help the child focus on the critical dimensions of the task. A third procedure is accountability, a
demand that the task be completed. Fourth is routine activity, such as a regular bedtime reading time,
rereading of a favorite book, and selection of texts that offer predictable text structures.
Our study involves a microanalysis of the effects of story retelling by a child who could not read when
we began. By establishing accountability and a routine activity while releasing control of semantic
contingency and scaffolding to the child, we were able to investigate what and how a child was learning
about reading. We arranged regular sessions in which a child repeatedly retold the same story, and we
responded appropriately to all her questions and comments that did not interfere with our questions.
In this way our analyses of her initiated comments, questions, and attempts to retell the story showed
what information the child could use and how her story retelling changed over time with repetition of
the activity.
We looked for connections between the text the child heard when it was read to her the first week and
her subsequent attempts to recall the story from the pictures or pictures and text. We focused
particularly on changes in her story retelling, questions and comments, and the way she tried to carry
out the task. Studying retelling over time allowed a detection not only of decontextualized language
Lartz & Mason
Oral to Written Language Development - 4
use but also of the ways the child kept the task meaningful and at the right level of difficulty. Our goal
was to show how a meaning-focused, story retelling activity functions in a child's prereading
development.
Method
In this 9-week study, we analyzed the changes in the way the child, Jamie, tried to retell the story,
Danny and the Dinosaur (Hoff, 1958) after one story reading. The book was new to her but not too
difficult since there were clear pictures on each page that helped explain the brief and fairly predictable
text. The book was one that she had not heard before and did not have at home, although she had
checked it out once from the library. Parents were requested not to read it to her or coach her about it
while the study was in progress.
Procedure. Lartz read the book to the child in the first session. For the next eight sessions, with a
session occurring once a week, the child was handed the book and asked to retell it. Each story
retelling was tape recorded with a session lasting for about an hour because after Jamie retold the story
she was allowed to choose another activity to do. She engaged in coloring, reading other books,
composing her own books, and, occasionally, listening to the just-completed story retelling on the tape
recorder.
Subject. Jamie was a 5-year-old, second-born child of three from a middle class, literate family. Her
parents were very supportive of early literacy activities, read frequently to her, and stressed early
education of their children. Jamie often participated in family outings and school-related activities.
She attended a kindergarten in which informal prereading activities such as looking at books, telling
stories to classmates, and dictating sentences to the teacher were common occurrences. When we
began the study, Jamie knew the alphabet and could handle books properly. She could also print some
words, including family-member names and environmental-print words, but could not differentiate
words from letters or sentences. She enjoyed looking at books and listening to an adult read. At the
beginning of the study, when asked to read a familiar story by herself, Jamie said that she couldn't read,
but with encouragement she was willing to pretend to read using her memory of the story.
Analysis. Transcripts from seven of the eight sessions in which Jamie told or read the book were
analyzed in terms of (a) amount of text information, (b) use of decontextualized language features, and
(c) interaction patterns between the adult and Jamie. A more limited analysis had to be done for the
seventh session because inadvertently only half of it was recorded. At the end of the study, the child
was also tested on her ability to read four sentences from the story out of context and then in context.
Results
The amount of information Jamie told on each occasion changed dramatically over the eight sessions
and is summarized in Table 1. On the first occasion she gave 40 idea units of information, but shifted
to more than double that amount by the fourth session, where it remained nearly constant for the
remainder of the sessions.
[Insert Table 1 about here.]
Increases in the amount and quality of her retelling is exemplified in Table 2, where her rendition of
the story introduction, story problem, and story resolution is shown for every other session. She quickly
codified information for the shorter and more familiar story opening and gradually included more
information regarding the problem/initiating event and resolution. By the fourth reading Jamie gave
all of the information correctly for the opening. By the sixth reading she had most of the problem
information and a considerable portion of the complex story resolution. Also, occasionally in the sixth
Lartz & Mason
Oral to Written Language Development - 5
reading, and more frequently on the last reading, she tried to figure out some of the words and began
to merge word reading with story telling. As a result of these later attempts to read instead of pretend
read, some of the story was not told quite so smoothly.
[Insert Table 2 about here.]
It was apparent that for the first two sessions Jamie's view of her task was to retell the story from
memory and from the pictures. However, by the third session, she was becoming a story teller.
Relying on the pictures, she invented a dialogue, creating a more complete and interesting story. By
the seventh session, she had begun to shift again toward actual reading. The interim steps between the
first and eighth sessions reveal two shifts: one in the third session to dialogue and refinement of story
events from picture information, and the other in the seventh session to reading parts of the actual text.
In so doing, she linked events, described reactions of characters, added useful details, and explained
actions. In making the second shift, she strove to achieve text accuracy. These changes are apparent in
Jamie's rendering of four text sections.
The first excerpt in Table 3 demonstrates Jamie's elaboration of an event, ignoring it in the second
session, giving information regarding the effect of the dinosaur's size in the fourth, describing Danny's
help in the sixth, and in the eighth, giving both important ideas, although still relying primarily on
picture information.
[Insert Table 3 about here.]
The second text excerpt shows Jamie's shift into a storyteller dialogue, attempting to render characters'
remarks, though at first confusing the pronouns, until she had an elaborate speech interchange in the
eighth session.
The third excerpt presents changes in explaining an event in terms of characters' needs and reactions.
The fairly sophisticated idea here, that the children should pretend not to find the dinosaur so that he
would have a good time playing with them, was not broached until the sixth session when Jamie noted
briefly that the children should pretend not to see the dinosaur. By the eighth session, however, she
was able to present this idea quite clearly.
The fourth shows her attempts to achieve an accurate rendition of a pictured sign. Here Jamie tried to
relay information in the pictured sign. In the eighth session, she matched the number of words in the
sign and corrected herself so that two of the three words were correct.
Jamie's increased use of decontextualized language forms was evident in our tabulations in Table 4 of
dialogue markers and connectives. Dialogue markers increased dramatically along with a shift from a
past tense to present tense accounting of much of the action. Jamie also changed her voice and gave a
speech-like rendition that implied dialogue (e.g., "I wish we had a boat," said Danny. "We don't need
one. I can swim anyways" [implied speech by the dinosaur]). By the last session she was using dialogue
carriers almost 90% of the time.
[Insert Table 4 about here.]
As Jamie began to shift from recalling to retelling, she stopped stringing sentences with and and then,
she shifted pronouns from he to I and we, and she expanded her retellings, balancing dialogue with
event description to tell the story. Table 4 shows changes in connective use over time while Table 5
presents one text segment example over the eight sessions.
[Insert Table 5 about here.]
Lartz & Mason
Oral to Written Language Development - 6
Interactions between expert and novice reader. For purposes of this study, Lartz deliberately avoided
initiating interactions with Jamie during the story retelling, although she did answer all of Jamie's
questions and did react to her comments. Beyond her choice of a book that was at Jamie's level of
difficulty for retelling, Lartz did not adjust the task over the eight sessions. As a result, these
interactions do not typify mother-child storybook interactions that Snow (1983) and others have
described.
Reviewing the four ways that mothers interact with children revealed these differences. In place of
semantically contingent remarks by the adult, these sessions were marked by text elaborations and
questions by the child. In the first session Jamie asked about scribbling marks on the pages and the age
of the dinosaur and commented about two pictures. In the picture that showed the dinosaur hiding,
she said, "They didn't know he was there. Yeah, right there. I do!" In another she commented that the
dinosaur mistook buildings for rocks, saying, "He thought they were rocks!" She continued asking
about or commenting on pictured events and characters in the remaining sessions, though less
frequently.
Beginning in the fourth session, Jamie asked about words and phrases with, "Are these tigers or lions?"
and "Does this say apes?" Lartz responded, "No, it says some other animal. G-GIR-." Jamie
interjected the right word, "Giraffes." In the fifth session she asked for help with, "I don't know what
this says" and "Is this the right page?" At the end of this fifth session, Lartz was so impressed by
Jamie's accurate rendition that she asked, "How'd you know what that said? Were you really reading
that or looking at the picture? Jamie responded that she was reading and demonstrated by reading one
of the sentences again. Lartz asked her how she did it:
Jamie: Mostly I start the words out.
Lartz: You start the words out--what?
Jamie: Like "I."
Lartz: Oh, and then you make the story up after you say a word?
Jamie: Yeah, then I start the answers.
Jamie's occasional attempt to read words became a clear goal in the seventh and eighth session when
she elicited Lartz's help to read in a number of ways. Instead of telling the story smoothly, she began
to pause and say words slowly or in a questioning tone. She requested more help on words or
sentences, corrected her own reading errors and hesitated in a way that elicited help from Lartz. She
also commented on how difficult it was to read, saying, "It's hard to read this way" and "Here comes the
hard part."
Adult scaffolding of the task was not necessary. Jamie herself retained the right level of difficulty. At
first she accepted the task as recalling and then modified it to be a story-telling task. When she had
become skillful at story telling, she reached for a depiction of the actual words in the text. That is,
when her text reconstructions were acceptable to her, she began to figure out actual words and phrases,
though continued to tell some of the story, which enabled her to include some decoding without losing
a sense of story meaning.
Accountability by adults during story reading was evident on two occasions. In Session 5 Jamie was
reluctant to read and so Lartz asked, "Can you remember anything about Danny and the dinosaur that
you could tell me about?" and then asked her to pretend that Lartz was "Jody and you tried to tell me
the story--what would you tell me--how would you start out?" At the beginning of Session 7, Jamie
Lartz & Mason
Oral to Written Language Development - 7
asked, "Don't you have other books?" to which Lartz responded, "Yeah, outside, but let's do this first."
Thus, on all eight occasions Jamie completed the task.
Routine activity was evident from the way Lartz set up the sessions. She arrived each week at the same
time with the book and Jamie knew what she was to do. The routine and predictability of the text itself
was also a help to Jamie. She noted the repetition of some sentences (e.g., "He saw Indians. He saw
bears. He saw Eskimos. He saw guns. He saw swords. And he saw a dinosaur."), and soon she was
saying these more quickly. As noted earlier, she realized how the story was organized and rendered the
opening, problem, and resolution sections in a consistent way.
Story telling or story reading? One would assume from the results so far described that by the last
session Jamie was reading rather than telling most of the story. We certainly thought so until we tested
her. Table 6 shows her attempts to read five sentences from the story out of context and then in
context (but out of order) in comparison to her rendition of the same sentences during the last session.
This test was given after the last session.
[Insert Table 6 about here.]
Differences between Jamie's attempts to read in and out of context demonstrate how dependent she
was on both the picture and the sequence of the story itself. Out of context, she correctly identified
only 1 word ("Danny") out of the 26 represented in the five sentences. With the picture context her
reading improved considerably: 2 sentences and 18 words were correctly read. With picture and story
continuity, she read 3 sentences and 21 words correctly. However, notice that attempts to read the text
out of context involved precisely the technique she had described earlier, "Mostly I start the words out.
.. then I start the answers." She chose words that began with the printed words (e.g., have so for he
saw), but without pictures she didn't have enough information to "start the answers!" Jamie was in
transition to actual reading, and was still heavily dependent on the story frame and picture context.
Discussion
The study reaped far more than expected. We had chosen a story-literate nonreader, a task that we
expected to be difficult but not impossible for the child, and arranged repeated sessions so that the
child could take the lead. While we expected her to demonstrate what she knew and to show changes
in use of picture information over the length of the study, we were surprised when she began trying to
read. She showed that she could recall a story. Then, presumably because of her knowledge about
how stories are written, she was able to show story-telling abilities. Beyond that, and here we presume
the repeated retellings are the explanation, she was able to begin reading the story. Often first-grade
teachers note that they seldom are able to pinpoint that elusive shift that children make into reading.
We saw Jamie begin that shift. Capturing that transition on our audiotapes was a fortuitous happening.
We propose that Jamie's movement into reading occurred not because she retold the story so many
times but because she possessed sufficient knowledge of story books to use picture information and,
eventually, to use letter information. She knew enough about how stories are written to mimic the
written language structures by using the story dialogue feature, and she was aware of connections
between letters and initial sounds of words.
The importance of letter-sound knowledge, or phonological awareness, is seldom disputed today (e.g.,
Stanovich, 1986). The importance of story structure, or decontextualized language, is thought to be
important but there is little research to back the belief. Changes in Jamie's retelling efforts suggest
that she applied her story knowledge to reconstruct a well-formed story. After the first two retellings
she gave up reciting the events as "X and then Y and then Z." She began to use pronouns and other
devices to connect sentences, to allow characters to tell their own story, to merge an ongoing event with
Lartz & Mason
Oral to Written Language Development - 8
a narrative accounting, and to include characters' intents and reactions in the story. In so doing she
began using first person pronouns and a variety of verb forms. Too, she told the story with engaging
voice changes. Jamie recognized the key ideas of the story with an opening and closing, problem and
resolution. She linked story events with explanations and prepositional structures. All of these moves--
verb tense, pronoun use, dialogue, complex syntactical structure, and depiction of key ideas--brought
her remarkably close to the actual text.
The transcripts suggest how Jamie used story knowledge to figure out and read portions of the text.
Beginning with her limited decoding knowledge that in order to recognize words the reader forms the
initial letter sound, Jamie built words and phrases from the picture context and her memory of the
story sequence. We noticed her attempt to read a few words during the fifth session and, by the last
two sessions, Jamie accepted the challenge of decoding larger portions of the text. She knew this was
different, saying, "It's hard to read this way" and "Here comes the hard part," but having a solid
understanding of the story form, she chose to persevere and continue the new task that she had set for
herself.
The study of Jamie's movement into reading provides a close-up view of early reading development. It
shows that a child who is accustomed to hearing stories and talking about them with adults can, with
repeated retellings, be positioned to take on the greater challenge of identifying text words. Assuming
Jamie's in- and out-of-context reading is representative of story-literate nonreaders, it shows that young
children are extraordinarily reliant on picture and story context for word and phrase identification.
Jamie, for example, recognized only 4% of the words out of context, 61% of the words with the picture,
and 81% of the words with picture and story continuity. Such strikingly different percentages may
occur because, at first, children lean heavily on their memory of the particular story that they are trying
to read as well as on their general knowledge about how stories are formed. Thus, children who are
comfortable with decontextualized language may stretch toward word recognition as they read, even
with meager word recognition skills. They can be aided by a story remembering that is quite close to
the actual text and they need only take a small step to render a correct reading.
What might children who go to school without a foundation of hearing, talking about, and retelling
stories do with this task? We presume that their out-of-context reading attempts would be not much
different from Jamie's but, without the backup knowledge of decontextualized language from hearing
stories, their in-context reading would be poor. Without the memory support of story context features,
they would stumble and not achieve a smooth, meaningful rendition of the text. Indeed, this is how
teachers characterize failing beginning readers.
Conclusion
Over a 9-week period Jamie developed knowledge of written language style, form, and function. Her
story telling became more understandable and entertaining, and she began to use an initial letter-sound
decoding strategy. Her intonation patterns changed from disconnected to conversational dialogue to
true reading intonation, and she took on the mannerisms of a beginning reader. The fascinating aspect
of this development is that it took place without any directed instruction from an adult, although
assistance and support were provided, and that substantial changes occurred in a relatively short time
period.
Additional descriptive and empirical studies are needed to understand the development of written
language knowledge among children who have had little home literacy experience. In addition,
retelling and rereading stories ought to be studied as instructional techniques in kindergarten and first
grade classrooms. Through studies of attempts to read and tell stories and investigations of home
storybook reading experiences, it ought to be possible to map out ways that story-literate children shift
Lartz & Mason
Lartz & Mason Oral to Written Language Development - 9
from oral to written language expression and to propose how to adapt these approaches for children
who enter school without having had storybook reading experience.
Practical applications must await further research, though this work suggests that teachers should be
aware of the importance of reading to children at home and at school and that making books available
for children to pretend read and retell is beneficial, even before children can actually read. Teachers
also should encourage the telling of stories. Through storytelling, children would have opportunities to
hear and begin using written language structures, story intonation patterns, and dialogue carriers. They
would begin to understand better how written language is formed and what it might mean.

Oral to Written Language Development - 12
Table 1
Comparison Over Eight Sessions of the Amount of Story Information Told or Read
Story Session
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
No. of
Idea Units
Given 40 46 71 110 106 113 --- 113
Lartz & Mason
Oral to Written Language Development - 13
Table 2
Remarks Made Regarding Story Opening, Problem, and Resolution
Opening (Text: One day Danny went to the museum.)
Session 2. One time Danny went to the zoo.
Session 4. One time Danny went to the museum.
Session 6. One day Danny went to the m-m-mus-museum.
Session 8. One day Danny went to the museum.
Problem (Text: Danny loved dinosaurs. He wished he had one. T"m sorry they are not real," said
Danny. "It would be nice to play with a dinosaur." "And I think it would be nice to play with you," said a
voice. "Can you?" said Danny. 'Yes," said the dinosaur.)
Session 2. He found some dinosaurs. They were big. But one of them looked at him and said, "Hi."
[inaudible]. "Yes," he said.
Session 4. And he saw some dinosaurs. Danny looked at them and thought he could have one. They
weren't moving. Danny said, "I'm sorry they aren't real, but if they were real, I would play with them."
Then a quiet voice said, "I would like to play with you."
Session 6. And he saw some dinosaurs. He wished he could have one. He said, "I'm sorry they are not
real. I wish I could play with them if they were real." "Oh, it would be nice to play with you," said a
voice. "Would you?" said Danny. "Yes."
Session 8. And he saw a dinosaur. Dan liked dinosaurs. He wished he could have one--Danny loved
dinosaurs. He wished he could have one. "I wish that--I am sorry they are not real," said Danny. If
they were, I wish that I could have one to play with." "It would be nice to play with you," said a voice.
"Would you? You would?"
Resolution (Text: "But now I must get back to the museum. They need me there." "Oh," said Danny.
"Well, goodbye." Danny watched until the long tail was out of sight. Then he went home alone. "Oh
well," thought Danny, "we don't have room for a pet that size, anyway. But we did have a wonderful day.")
Session 2. Then they had to go home and he had to go bye.
Session 4. "Can you stay?" said Danny. "No, I can't [inaudible] the museum." "Anyways that's all right
'cause we don't have much room in our house anyways," said Danny. Danny watched until the long tail
was out of sight and then Danny--Danny wished that he had a dinosaur of his own.
Session 6. All the children had to go home. Then the dinosaur had to. Danny waited until the long
tail was out of sight and then he went home. On the way home, "Anyways, O-o-o-oh, well, we didn't
even have a room for a dinosaur anyways."
Session 8. "I have to go back to the museum." "Ok." Danny watched until the long tail was out of
sight. Then Danny went home. "Oh, anyway--o-o-gee--Oh well, I didn't have room for a dinosaur,
anyway," said Danny.
Lartz & Mason
Oral to Written Language Development - 14
Table 3
Elaboration, Dialogue, Characterization, and Word Reading Changes Over Eight
Story Telling Sessions
Text #1: The dinosaur was so tall that Danny had to hold up the wires for him. "Look out!" said Danny.
[The picture shows the dinosaur about to become tangled in the wires.]
Session 2. [No comment made about this section]
Session 4. The dinosaur was too big. He got caught in the phone wire.
Session 6. Danny had to hold the wires up or the dinosaur would get caught.
Session 8. The dinosaur was too big for the wires. Danny had to hold them up to get through.
Text #2: "Bow wow!" said a dog, running after them. "He thinks you are a car," said Danny. "Go away,
dog. We are not a car." "I can make a noise like a car," said the dinosaur. "Honk! Honk! Honk!"
Session 2. Then they found a dog. Then a dog chased but he didn't chase very long.
Session 4. A dog ran after them. He thinks they were a car and the dinosaur said, "Shoo, we are not a
car. I am a dinosaur," said the dinosaur. The dinosaur said that I could make a noise like a car, mmm,
mmm.
Session 6. A dog was chasing us. "Shoo, shoo, dog. We are not a car. I can make a noise like a car.
Honk, honk," said the dinosaur.
Session 8. A dog was chasing them. "I am not a car. Shoo, Shoo. I can make a noise like a car," said
the dinosaur. "You can?" "Yes, I can," said the dinosaur. "Honk, honk, honk."
Text #3: "Let's play hide and seek," said the children. "How do you play it?" said the dinosaur. "We hide
and you try to find us," said Danny. [text continues with dinosaur not finding the children and then the
children easily find the dinosaur] "Let's make believe we can't find him," Danny said. 'Where can he be?
Where, oh where is that dinosaur? Where did he go? We give up," said the children. "Here I am," said the
dinosaur. "The dinosaur wins," said the children. 'We couldn't find him. He fooled us. Hurrah for the
dinosaur!" the children cried. "Hurray! Hurray!"
Session 2. And then they decided to [inaudible] play hide and seek. And then they [inaudible]. And
then they--he tried to hide. And then he hided behind [inaudible]. And then they didn't find him, but
they turned around and saw him.
Session 4. They played hide and seek. They all hided. The dinosaur could not find them. "We give
up." Then it was the dinosaur's turn. He hided behind a house. They found him. He hided behind a
gas tank. They found him and the dinosaur [inaudible]. The dinosaur [inaudible]. Everybody looked
for him and [inaudible]. The people walked up. "Horray for the dinosaur, the dinosaur won."
Lartz & Mason
Oral to Written Language Development - 15
Table 3 (Continued)
Session 6. "Let's play hide and seek," said the children. "I don't know how to," said the dinosaur. "You
hide and we seek. And you go and close your eyes and go and hide [inaudible]." "All right." All the
children ran to hide. "I can't find them. I give up." Then it was the dinosaur's turn. They closed their
eyes and the dinosaur seeked. He hided behind a house. He hided behind a sign and [inaudible].
"Pretend you can't see him." He hided behind a gas tank, then--then he hided and they couldn't find
him. "I give up," said the children. "Hooray for the dinosaur. The dinosaur won. Hooray for the
dinosaur."
Session 8. "Want to play hide and seek?" said the kids. "Ok, ok." You seek and we hide." So they did.
"Where are you? I give up." Then it was the dinosaur's turn. He hided behind a house. They saw him.
He hided behind a sign. They saw him. He hided behind a gas tank. They saw him. "I think we
should let him have a chance to do it." He hided behind a post. They didn't see him. "Hooray for the
dinosaur. Hooray, hooray, hooray for the dinosaur."
Text #4: "Wait, "said Danny. "See what it says." [a sign--Please keep off--is in the picture.]
Session 2. [No comment]
Session 4. "Look! Please stay off of the grass."
Session 6. "Lookit. Look at that sign. No--stay off of that grass. Stay off the grass."
Session 8. "Look! Do not--please stay off."
Lartz & Mason
Oral to Written Language Development - 16
Table 4
Use of Decontextualized Language in Story Retelling
Story Session
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Dialogue
Markers 2 1 10 19 23 18 -- 17
Implied
Dialogue 1 2 6 16 19 34 -- 29
Connectives 16 27 12 5 4 5 -- 4
Lartz & Mason
Oral to Written Language Development - 17
Table 5
Jamie's Use of Connectives, Pronouns, and Tense Markers Over Eight Story Telling
Sessions
Text: Some people were waiting for a bus. They rode on the dinosaur's tail instead. "All who want to
cross the street, may walk on my back," said the dinosaur. "It's very nice of you to help me with my
bundles," said a lady.
Session 1. Then he helped the girl get across the street and then he helped everybody get across the
street so the cars could get under it [Comment to Lartz: That wouldn't make very much traffic].
Session 2. [inaudible] crossed the street and then helped everybody get across the street and the cars
went under [inaudible] in the street.
Session 3. Some people were riding a bus [Comment to Lartz: They are riding the dinosaur. See
them. They don't know that they're riding him. They're just standing there saying, "ooh, ooh"]. "I will
help you get across the street," said the dinosaur.
Session 4. Everyone waited for a bus stop. They waited on the dinosaur. "If you need to get across,"
said the dinosaur, "You can walk on me or if some people are riding a bike instead of walking or you
can ride a bike over," said the dinosaur. "This is nice for you to help me across the street," said one
lady.
Session 5. Everyone was waiting for a bus. "You don't have to walk across the street. You can walk
on me," said the dinosaur. "It's very nice for you to take me across the street," said one lady.
Session 6. They rode on the dinosaur while they were waiting for a bus. "Walk on me if you want to go
across. Walk on me," said the dinosaur. Everybody walked over. "It is nice for you to take me across
the street," said one lady.
Session 7. People were waiting for a bus. Everyone walked on the dinosaur to get to the other side.
[Comment to Lartz: People were walking this way and that way] "It is nice for you to carry me across
the street," said one lady.
Session 8. The people waiting for a bus. They didn't get on the bus. They got on the dinosaur. All the
people walked on the dinosaur. "It is--I think that's for you too [inaudible]."
Lartz & Mason
Oral to Written Language Development - 18
Table 6
Reading Familiar Sentences In and Out of Context
Situation
Jamie's Response
Text: Danny watched until the long tail was out of sight.
Text, no picture Danny went a--Danny wanted a dinosaur.
[To Lartz: Is dinosaur a real long word?]
Picture and text Danny watched until the long tail was out of sight.
Picture, text, and continuity of story Danny watched until the long tail was out of sight.
Text: What big rocks.
Text, no picture
Picture and text
Picture, text, and continuity of story
Text: They are not rocks.
Text, no picture
Picture and text
Picture, text, and continuity of story
Text: He saw some guns.
Text, no picture
Picture and text
Picture, text, and continuity of story
Text: Nobody stayed to see the monkeys.
Text, no picture
Picture and text
Picture, text, and continuity of story
Why [response matches initial consonant]
What big rocks.
What big rocks.
T-Don't and no rr- [responses match some
initial consonants]
[No response. To Lartz: I never read this before]
They are not rocks.
have so [responses match first two initial
consonants]
He saw some guns.
He saw a gun.
No lions or seals
And they left the monkeys.
They left the monkeys.
Lartz & Mason